When not in use, golf clubs are typically protected by head mittens and/or by a flexible hood fitted over the heads of the clubs and releasably secured to the upper collar of the golf bag. While these measures provide basic protection, they do not necessarily provide significant protection against damage due to rough handling during long term storage and/or transport, such as for instance during air travel.
To provide additional protection, hard-sided travel bags are available to enclose and protect the traditional bags and clubs. While rigid structures are generally effective in combatting club damage they are typically larger, heavier, and/or more cumbersome than traditional golf bags and may require additional logistics handling, and shipment as well as storage of the hard-sided bag itself.
In an attempt to avoid a separate hard-sided shell, various devices to reinforce a typical soft-sided bag have been utilized as well. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,738,208 describes a golf bag that purports to protect golf clubs from damage during transit or storage. The golf bag includes a head member having a solid plate configuration and having a semi-rigid construction and an extensible rod assembly adapted to be positioned in the golf bag with the lower end of the rod assembly positioned on the base of the golf bag. The head member may be releasably attached to the upper end of the rod assembly or may be stored in a side pocket of the golf bag. The rod assembly is selectively moveable between an extended travel configuration having a length greater than the length of the longest club of the set of clubs, whereby the head member may be releasably attached to the upper end of the rod assembly so as to protectively overlie the head of the longest club to provide protection for the clubs in travel scenarios, and a retracted play configuration having a length less than the length of the golf bag, whereby the head member may be removed from the rod assembly and stored in the side pocket of the golf bag so that the rod assembly may reside unobtrusively in the bag during golf play.